Harlem (New York, N.Y.); New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs
Kiki drifted. She was reported married to an athletic director, but
that fizzled. She did marry a beer salesman, in an elopement, and she
soon got a divorce. She flew to Memphis and became the wife of a Newark
airport attaché.
She was reported running a lunchroom in Bridgeport. Broadway never knew
her again.
Perhaps, somewhere, now 40 but undoubtedly still chic and attractive,
a redheaded woman lives the simple, unrippled existence of a matured
matron. Perhaps, though, in the dark, alone, she recalls the flash of
guns, the thud of bullets, the mad love of a murderous madman, third
degrees by police and prosecutors, days and nights of fleeing and being
hunted with her lover--and the last glimpse of his riddled remains, in
a basket in an undertaker's morgue in Albany, where she slunk in after
all others--except one of your authors, covering the story--had gone.
This little pig had no roast beef. But she certainly didn't stay home!
22. WHITE WAY WOLVES
Call a man a dog and he'll fight. Call a woman a cat and she'll scratch
your eyes.
But speak of a guy as a wolf, a most loathsome, cowardly animal, and
he'll be pleased as all get out.
Of course, no man openly admits he's a wolf. He smirks and smiles and
blushes and tries to giggle it off. But he sure is proud.
The dictionary defines "wolf" as a fierce, rapacious, destructive
beast--or person. None of that fits the New York _canis lupus_.
He is not fierce; he traps his prey with gentle wiles. He is not
rapacious, being satisfied with one at a time. (But every day is a
different time.) And he is not so destructive.
The subject of wolves has been written about ad nauseam, and to most
people it's an old and tedious joke. Yet, nowhere in the world save
possibly Hollywood, are male wolves so much a part of the scene as in
afterdark New York.
Here, wolfing has developed into an art, and though grandma's girl,
after she's been around any time at all, spots the species immediately,
tradition demands that she permit him to pursue and subdue her,
wolf-fashion, and never let on she's wise to his act. Wolves are very
sensitive.
Though there are more femmes in Gotham than in any other city on earth,
it takes much ingenuity to stalk the Little Red Riding Hood here.
There are no forest paths. It's the best-lighted place on earth--when
John L. Lewis keeps his hands off. It is against the law to flirt on
the streets of New York. He who would try it in public places, such as
theatres or the subway, will get a punch in the nose if he doesn't land
in the hoose-gow.
There are so many wolves in Manhattan that, even if the entire female
population of Scranton, with Reading and Mauch Chunk thrown in, were
transplanted here, they wouldn't cross the path of 1 per cent of our
predatory males.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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